COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO – USA Taekwondo (USAT) is pleased to announce the results of the recent elections for the Referee and Coach Director positions for the Transitional Board of Directors. The United States Olympic Committee’s Audit Division administered the collection of the ballots and validated 174 votes that elected Anne Chase (Minneapolis, Minn.) as the Referee Director and Brandon Meek (Los Angeles, Calif) as the Coach Director. In the interest of transparency, Chase received 58 votes to the 32 that were cast for Elva Adams (Helotes, TX) while Meek tallied 63 votes to 21 votes for Angel Aranzamendi (Sedalia, CO). USA Taekwondo would like to thank all of the candidates who volunteered to serve the organization by running for these positions.

In addition to Chase and Meek, Brian McCutcheon (Ewa Beach, Hawaii) and Herb Perez (Foster City, Calif.) were elected as the two Club Directors as they were uncontested in the Club Director election.

Chase, Meek, McCutcheon and Perez will join Marty Mankamyer (Independent Director), Russell Ahn (Affiliated Director – ½ vote) and JP Choi (Affiliated Director – ½ vote) who are already seated on the Transitional Board of Directors per USA Taekwondo’s Bylaws while two athletes will be named to serve working with USAT’s Athletes’ Advisory Council. Finally, two Independent Directors will be selected by the Transitional Board to complete the full Board.

Once fully seated, the Transitional Board of Directors will fulfill the governance roles and responsibilities in USAT’s Bylaws. In addition, they will be tasked with conducting a thorough review of USAT’s current governance model to determine if it is structured appropriately to provide effective leadership to its constituencies and to recommend and approve changes where necessary.

The Transitional Board of Directors term ends on December 31, 2012, or when a new Board is seated. Given that the initial term was expected to be six to eight months, it is likely this Board’s term will be extended until first quarter 2013. However, any change in the term date would need to be approved by the United States Olympic Committee’s Section 10 Hearing Panel.